Steve wrote:
I agree with what you say and really wish we could move forward with this. The only thing that is preventing this happening is the expected reaction that will occur when/if that information is ever released. Unfortunately the concept of constructive criticism is an anathema to some members of this list and this is the blockage.
I must disagree. I suppose it's good for Warren to have an apologist, but you are simply not getting the facts right. Warren seems to be unable to deal with constructive criticism.
What you characterize as attacks by "arrogant naysayers" (and as professional engineers looking down on amateur engineers) has, to my reading, been a fair attempt by other listmembers to understand Warren's TPLL implementation so that they can try to ascertain to what degree it is likely to provide useful results over a broader range of conditions than those that have been publicly demonstrated. As we have asked for more details so we can try to do this, Warren has responded in every case -- every case -- with vague allusions to details of his implementation and testing he has done, childish accusations that nobody understands anything and we all must think he can't add two and two, followed by more and more outlandish claims about what his device does (for just one example, "the simple analog TPLL method holds the Phase difference [between the reference and test oscillators] to zero (with-in 1 femtosecond)" -- Wed, 9 Jun 2010 21:05:57 -0700), which (i) cannot be true and (ii) appear to demonstrate that Warren not only has not tested at least some of the things that he is claiming, but seems not to understand much of the basic subject matter. Warren has had more than ample opportunity to answer any criticism by saying calmly that he did "a" (with a decent explanation of what "a" is) and got "x" result, and similarly with "b" and "y," "c" and "z," etc., but he has not once done so. One might reasonably conclude after all of the smokescreens and refusals that he has not, in fact, done any of the things to which he has vaguely alluded.
I know you have said more than once that we should just ignore "the femtosecond thing," but why? (Not that anything turns on this one claim anyway -- there are plenty of others like it.) You yourself called it into question (Thu, 10 Jun 2010 17:05:26 +1200). It is a claim Warren made, and very specifically -- not that a femtosecond is the resolution of the test method stated in units of time (which others have advanced to try to explain what he meant), but that his PLL locks two 10 MHz oscillators to within one femtosecond of each other and that he has verified this in several ways. If Warren claims this thing (and numerous others that can easily be found in the voluminous record) that must be mistaken (or worse), what else that he has claimed can we trust? When you read the posts and make the inferences that Warren's statements invite (in many cases, seemingly inescapably), it appears that the only trustworthy information we have about the operation of Warren's TPLL is what John published -- which indicates that the method has promise -- perhaps even considerable promise -- but is far from the proof Warren seems to think it is that his device fulfills all of his claims or has been characterized to the point that others can predict under what conditions they can rely on it.
So, please, don't make Warren out as the poor, well-meaning basement inventor being bashed by the "professionals." His childish tantrums, insults, and outlandish claims are his and his alone. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that he was hard done by (which I do not believe is true), that would not excuse his responses. It would have been one thing to say, "Hey, I put this together and it seems to work pretty well" and leave it at that, but that is not what Warren did.
Best regards, Charles _______________________________________________ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@febo.com To unsubscribe, go to https://www.febo.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts and follow the instructions there.
